


Positive Reinforcement

by Merfilly



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Soul Bond, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an AU where Menolly's fire lizards react to Jaxom's distress, a complicated bond is formed on more than one side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sabriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabriel/gifts), [lalaietha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/gifts).



> While this is only a snippet, it is a snapshot of one of SEVERAL AUs I have thought of over the years for that unusual hatching.

The commotion started when her fire lizards reacted to the boy shouting at the egg that was struggling but not hatching. Menolly couldn't let her fair be disruptive when the Hatching had already been so full of emotion and surprise. Yet they were there, attacking the shell with their talons and battering it with all their might. She dimly heard the riders still there supervising saying something as she forced herself out to catch at Beauty, maybe Rocky if she could. Hopefully they'd calm down then.

The boy, seeing her move to the sands, watching the pain flash over her face, wasn't quite sure what to do, but her fire lizards kept badgering the egg. When her hand shot out to grasp Beauty, Menolly's vision was skewed by the impressions of all nine of them at once. Past the gold, and straight into the shattered shell with its too thick protection around a… soft, straining hide within it.

_Weak, hungry, please…._

As incapable of turning a blind heart to the suffering, Menolly pulled the edges of that hole back, all outward awareness focusing to her fair, those piteous cries, and her burning, stinging feet.

Before any dragon man could get to her, the boy did, vaulting the rail to join her on the sands, trying to support her efforts despite all that Diver tried to push him away at first.

She fell back against the boy, both on their bottoms, as the tiny form inside the egg spilled out, wings tangled, into her lap. Red-tinged eyes smoothed toward rainbow, as nine smaller forms hastened to help smooth out the wings and tail, but those details were lost as her wide open mind was crashed into not one, but two others in the moment the dragonet looked up.

"Ruth?" the boy and Menolly said in one voice, bound to the service of the smallest dragon ever, and to one another despite being strangers.


	2. Settling to Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Menolly and Jaxom truly meet

Ruatha had to have a Lord Holder, even if it was still held by Lytol.

Robinton was just as adamant that the lost student of Petiron be trained as a Harper. And then there was all the protest from the Lords, as well as surprising support.

`~`~`~`~`

Neither young person had much of an interest in the debate's raging around the feast tables, as they sat with the now somnolent white dragon. They could not see much of said dragon, as the nine fire-lizards had opted to be a blanket upon the small dragonet. 

"This isn't how it's done," the boy finally said.

"No, but then…" The girl made a hand wave at the nine fire-lizards that looked to her.

It made the boy laugh softly, but it was sad and his head turned toward the table where the Weyrwoman herself was entertaining very important men. The girl followed the gaze, noting the scar-faced man that was singing with the tall man that had been introduced to her as Robinton.

THE Robinton, Masterharper of Pern, who had said he never expected to find the apprentice he was looking for at such an unorthodox hatching.

"I'm Menolly," the girl finally said, when the boy looked back at the small dragon they somehow shared.

"Jaxom of Ruatha." 

They appraised each other, the echo of thoughts, of the emotions that were so uncertain, mingling between them.

"I think…we Impressed not only Ruth but each other," Menolly hazarded to suggest. Jaxom's eyes went wide, and she felt a flare of hope, of longing, before it was tamped down by an aching loneliness. She didn't really remember moving so that she had her arm around his shoulder, side by side with him. 

"Does that mean we'll be friends?" Jaxom managed to ask.

She nodded, a touch shyly. "I'm don't know much about being one, but …"

"Neither do I," he admitted, hand reaching out to stroke the nose of their shared responsibility. She reached too, and their fingers twined, touching the one who bound them.

`~`~`~`~`

A compromise was hammered out, wherein Menolly would finish her apprenticeship at the Hall and Jaxom would be taken under wing by the Harper for a fresh view of the world's dynamics. Many thought the dragon would die, but it was Lessa, reassured by Ramoth, who knew better.

It was also Lessa, on watching the pair, who realized there was more at stake than merely the Impression of one dragon by two riders. She had always had a feel of humans, not as deep as dragons, but still there. What she felt from the soon to be Harper and the Lordling was a quiet rapport, much like a rider and dragon.

"Thinking thoughtful things, my Weyrwoman?" Robinton asked softly at her ear. She had but to shift slightly, and the solidity of his tall frame was there to guard her.

"Seeing that the future holds surprises greater than any I have forced us to deal with yet," she answered him.

"So it does, and may it ever be so."


End file.
